Women, a Key of Behaviour Change for Bird Flu Prevention (Peran Perempuan, Kunci Perubahan Perilaku untuk Pencegahan Flu Burung)

By Luh De Suriyani
Bali

Woman can be a succesful farmer and the agent of behaviour change. Not many people have realized the potency of woman as it is considered as God’s will. Woman is also the executor of traditional ceremonies in Bali. One of  activities that has risk of  Avian Influenza (AI)  transmission.

Kadek Andariani, 32 years, is a medium-scale farmer in Pekarangan Sub-village, Karangasem District. She and her husband manage two male chickens houses in which if they are full, the number of chickens is around 3,000.

Across the chicken houses there are three pig houses. A female pig is just tied up in a tree trunk. Bathing in the mud. Tens of native chickens are roaming in the backyard and around the cages. The chickens are provided with egg tray in the corners of  a hut or other shaded site.

The noise is outside of the residence’s wall, but it is attached to the residence. There is only one chicken cage with the size of 9 square meters in the residence.

This cage is specicifically made for expensive chickens, they are sold especially for caru (sacrifice for traditional ceremony) as it is included as madan chicken.  Madan chicken is a name for chicken with specific color of feathers which is in line with the needs for  banten (offering) caru. For example, black (siap selem), plain white, or red-black-white (brumbun).

“The price of each madan chicken of 2 weeks old  can be Rp 40 thousands. Not bad for income,” explained Kadek. Therefore, he places a board in front of her house, “Selling Bebanten Chicken.” The income from selling these banten chickens  often become the main income for  Kadek’s family.

Kadek’s house is located in the middle of coconut, pineaple, banana trees and other plants. The trees are grown up naturally and they are not planted deliberately.  The harvest result is used only for traditional ceremony, and sold if too much.

Kadek is the only farmer with chicken houses in the sub village. She got the skills of raising chickens when her husband, Nengah Geria was a security guard at breeding or day old chicken (DOC)  company in Denpasar.

Other people, almost all of them have tens of native chickens which are raised in the backyard (backyard farming).

Everyday, Kadek manages his time between taking care of her two children and works at chicken houses. The paralysis in some part of her body does not hamper her to work. About 10 years ago, Kadek got a motorcycle incidence and she was declared of being total paralysed because her nerves were broken. She went through the difficulty for medication and keep doing theraphy with different doctors, blood theraphy expert, or shaman. Recently, her hands and some of her body are able to move but it is not perfect anymore.

The time has come for chicken vaccination with  tetelo or newcastle desease (ND) vaccine. The disease often make farmers lose a lot. In Bali bird flu is more known with the term of grubug, it means massive death.

“Please wear your mask, De,” she reminnded her husband. Reluctantly, Nengah Geria took his mask which was hanging in the ceiling of the chicken house. Geria is not comfortable wearing mask. This is a new habit for him following bird flu outbreak in Bali in 2004. “I feel uneasy wearing mask in the chicken house,” he said.

After making sure that Ketut Widi, her 2 years child is asleep, Kadek helped his husband to administer vaccination. With the half-paralysed fingers, but it does not affect her deftness to grab chickens and dropped the vaccine quickly

She spent two hours to vaccinate around 2,500 chickens Really tiring. After vaccination, Kadek cleaned up all equipments and washed them.

Now her chicken houses are clean. Drink containers have been washed cleanly. Just need to spray disinfectant. Kadek undoubtfully spares special budget to buy disinfetant liquid approximately  Rp 200 thousands per 5 litres. “I often put more than the disinfectant recommendation so that the germs will be died totally,” she said.

“Do not forget to take bath  before entering house,” he asked her husband.

Washing hand and taking bath are two simple activities that she always reminds her husband to do so. “I have a baby. We anticipate not to bring disease to the bed room,” he said.

Bird flu outbreak in some areas do not dicourage the expectation of Kadek’s family to improve her husbandry farming. She believes that proper maintenance and keeping hygiene can prevent from the AI virus. “AI case in Karangasem must be caused by chicken feces that is piled up and not sprayed,” she said regarding AI infection in a number of chickens in  Karangasem previously.

Women in Bali are not only skillful in handling the hygiene of poultry and themselves, but most of them also the key of the implementation of traditional ceremonies.

On that day, 8 November 2008 there was Tumpek Kandang ceremony,  ritual to honor animals by Hindus in Bali. This Tumpek is celebrated once in very six months. It is believed that animals are human partner on earth that give significant contribution to life.

Komang Sriwati, 42, farmer in Tunjuk Tengah Sub village, Tabanan District, Bali for the last one month has been busy with the preparation of huge ceremony at Datua Temple, sacred place for the surrounding people.

This Datua Temple Piodalan (a kind of celebration of anniversary day) is always held at the smae time with Tumpek Kandang ceremony. “We believe that the keeper of this Temple gives safety for animals and livestock in the surrounding area. Every Tumpek, we always worship here and ask for tirta (holy water) to be spattered around the animal houses,” siad Sriwati while waiting for the distribution of the holy water at the temple with other tens of people.

Coincidently, during this Tumpek Kandang, Datua Temple has just been renovated and pecaruan besar was just conducted as the form of sacrifice. The animals for sacrifice to Caru Panca include dog of one month old  and chickens of five color group.

Most people came to the temple were women. “Our duty is to make banten (offering)  and will conduct mebanten (worship ritual) at the animal houses when we arrive at home,” said Sriwati.

Women in Balinese traditional clothes were waiting for all procession of the ceremonial main event at the temple for half a day. Almost all stages were conducted and instructed by women in the village except to strike a gong (musical gong to accompany the ceremony) and the main leader of the ceremony is a priest.

Now the time has come to give the holy water and  canang (banten in the form of flower arrangement) like a bless. Three members of ceremonial committee deftly received offerings from people such as rice, incense, and sugar to be exchanged with holy water and a canang sari.

Sriwati penetrated deftly into the crowd. Her left hand was holding a heavy banten of flower arrangement and fruit while her right hand was seen to bring the holy water.

She did not waste her time to fix her banten which was a bit broken because it was touched by others. She efficiently took her motorcycle from the parking lot. Kamen (cloth used for wraparound) which wrapped her feet did not hamper her to run the motorcycle manually.

It took only ten minutes from Datua Temple to her house. Without having lunch, Sriwati directly went to her chicken cage across her house. At that time, the cage was empty.  “Hopefully 3000 DOCs will come by the day after tomorrow” she said.

A schedule of vaccination and basic regulations on chicken house management are attached on the door of chicken house, which has the size of around 20 x 10 meters.

While her husband, Nyoman Nawi, 43, was preparing the bamboo partition for the chicken house. The DOCs will be contained tightly for the first week with warming equipment. That is why it is required to build bamboo wall to isolate the DOCs.

There is no smell of feces or trace of chicken feathers in the very clean chicken house. Three big fans are hanging in the ceiling of the chicken house. Small pipes of water flow are transverse, forming a special pattern. “For the last one year, I don’t need to be busy anymore to fill in the driking water containers. Water pipe automatically opens if there a chicken pecks the drinking water container,” explained Sriwati while preparing  banten  for Tumpek Kandang.

The sterilized cage was prepared for almost a week. Chicken feces is thrown away into a  hole which is specially made to burn dead chickens around five meters from the chicken house. After that, the chicken house is sprayed with formalin.

For almost two weeks they emptied the chicken houses, everyday Sriwati and her husband spray disinfectant two times, in the morning and in the afternoon. Lastly, he scattered husk. “So that the feces is not sticked on the floor. It is not wet because the feces liquid is absorbed by the husk. “It is much easier to clean and burn,” explained Sriwati.

Her husband works as an army officer, his office is at the local Koramil (Military Headquarters at the sub district level). Therefore, Sriwati feels that she is the most responsible for her chickens, although she admitted that she made division of responsibilities with her husband to take care them.

“The farm does really help the family income. No matter how huge is the issue of bird flu, we will not stop. Even now there are many people become farmers in this sub village,” explained Serma Nyoman Nawi, Sriwati’s husband.

This couple started their farming business in 2002. A year later, more than two million chickens died in Bali, it was assumed as bird flu oubreak which also occured in some areas in Indonesia. Around 500 chickens belonged to Sriwati also died, but she believed it caused by grubug (tetelo). It was the same like the assumption of the Indonesian government then.

A neighboring village, Senganan village, Tabanan, became the venue for the massive chicken depopulation because it is one of the biggest poultry farming center in Bali. About 300 thousand chickens have been culled.
“ We believe that proper handling can prevent from bird flu” answered Sriwati with smile.

Sriwati also believes that prevention action in the form of niskala (abstract) can protect her chickens. She started the offering for Tumpek Kandang by cleaning pelangkiran, a kind of wooden container, a place for worship conduct. The pelangkiran is hanging in the north east of the chicken house, it is a holy direction based on Hindu’s belief in Bali.

“I offer white chicken for sacrifice to Sang Rare Angon that is believed to give protection to livestock. And to give my gratitude for the livestock as my source of livelihoods so far,” Sriwati explained the meaning of her Tumpek Kandang offering.

Rare Angon is known as a legend who loved his work as a sheperd.

The belief of Sriwati dan her husband has also influenced some neighbors. For the last three years one by one new farmer comes into the business in the village.

One of them, Putu Satriani, 28, and her husband Wayan Sudana, 37. They just started the farming business one and half years ago. Previously, Sudana worked as a labour (stone cutter). Now, after doing farming, they begin to see better future for their two kids.

“Once I was afraid because of bird flu due to the virus which is invisible. But my high spirit beat my fear to do farming. Now, if my chicken house is empty, I feel bad. I am more afraid if my chickens are sick,” said Satriani.

According to her, bird flu is a challenge of life. She admitted that she has been trying to prevent from the infection by simple actions such as washing hands frequently.

With niskala, she also has different way to protect her chickens “Every time we finish harvest, we slaughter one of the healthiest and biggest chicken for banten (offering). So that the next harvest will  also be good,” Satriani smiled.

Satriani admitted that she has never received any education on bird flu prevention. She learned about management of cage hygiene and other issues from her neighbors and other senior farmers like Sriwati.

I Gusti Ngurah Mahardika, a veterinarian who conducted bird flu research intensively said that the role of women is very vital in a sustainable AI prevention. First, as the key for communication with children, other women and her relatives.

“Don’t ever let children playing with sick chickens. This warning is the most effective way done by women who more frequent in observing children at home,” he said.

Aside from that, according to Mahardika, women have been so far as the key of behaviour change in controlling bird flu such as in handling the hygiene of the chicken house and the individual.

In addition , women also have higher risk to get bird flu infection. “This is in line with the result of research conducted by Badiwangsa that one of the risk factors of AI transmission in Bali is traditional ceremony,” added Badiwangsa who is also the head of laboratory of Biomedic and Animal Molecular of Udayana University Denpasar.

Ida Bagus Ketut Alit, the Head of Livestock Service of Bali admitted that there is no special outreach program for women in bird flu education. According to him, women can quickly change the behaviour in handling poultry due to their instinct.

Coordinator of  Participatory Disease Searching and Response (PDSR) Bali drh. Wayan Sukanadi in approaching community always emphasizes on quick response if there is sick poultry of sudden dead poultry.

“Some AI cases in Bali have been revealed due to community response. It is still difficult to change the behaviour of farmers totally because public awareness is not maximum yet, such as throwing  chicken carcass into the river ,” he said

Mahardika emphasized that it not necessary to have advanced knowledge to  break the AI transmission cahin. The most important is behaviour change. “No need to have rocket knowledge for this,” he said. [*]

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